Methods and apparatuses for multi-panel power control

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a user equipment, at least one signal for performing inter-antenna panel pathloss power measurements;

computing an initial uplink transmission power control value for a target uplink resource without any interference information;

computing pathloss power differences between the target uplink resource and candidate interference resources using the pathloss power measurements; and

using the pathloss power differences to identify a dominant uplink interferer by computing maximum estimated pathloss power differences.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

determining whether there is a need to increase or decrease the initial uplink transmission power control value to compute at least one uplink transmission power control value; and

applying the computed at least one uplink transmission power control value for resources configured for simultaneous uplink transmission over multiple antenna panels.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the computing of the pathloss power differences comprises subtracting a pathloss estimate of the target uplink resource from a pathloss estimate of a candidate interference resource.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the dominant uplink interferer is determined by computing the maximum estimated pathloss power differences for k-th target resource as follows: Δk=Max{d(k,1), d(k,2), . . . , d(k,I)}, wherein parameter I=K−1 and parameter K defines number of resources configured for simultaneous uplink transmission.

5. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

decreasing the initial uplink transmission power by value of the maximum estimated pathloss power difference when the value of the maximum estimated pathloss power difference is larger than zero.

6. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

increasing the initial uplink transmission power for the target uplink resource when value of the maximum estimated pathloss power difference is less than or equal to zero and the user equipment has transmission power budget available.

7. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

computing a transmission power increase by first selecting a minimum value out of an absolute of maximum estimated pathloss power difference and a network configured uplink transmission power boost value; and

selecting a power control value by taking a minimum among a power increase of the initial uplink transmission power control value and a total uplink transmission power budget.

8. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

using the initial uplink transmission power control value when the user equipment does not have transmission power budget available.

9. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

applying computed power control values for resources configured for simultaneous uplink transmission over multiple antenna panels when the uplink transmission power control values have been determined for all configured uplink resources.

10. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one memory comprising computer program code;

at least one processor;

wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the apparatus at least to:

receive, by the apparatus, at least one signal for performing inter-antenna panel pathloss power measurements;

compute an initial uplink transmission power control value for a target uplink resource without any interference information;

compute pathloss power differences between the target uplink resource and candidate interference resources using the pathloss power measurements; and

use the pathloss power differences to identify a dominant uplink interferer by computing maximum estimated pathloss power differences.

11. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:

determine whether there is a need to increase or decrease the initial uplink transmission power control value to compute at least one uplink transmission power control value; and

apply computed at least one uplink transmission power control value for resources configured for simultaneous uplink transmission over multiple antenna panels.

12. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the computing of the pathloss power differences comprises subtracting a pathloss estimate of the target uplink resource from a pathloss estimate of a candidate interference resource.

13. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the dominant uplink interferer is determined by computing the maximum estimated pathloss power differences for k-th target resource as follows: Δk=Max{d(k,1), d(k,2), . . . , d(k,I)}, wherein parameter I=K−1 and parameter K defines number of resources configured for simultaneous uplink transmission.

14. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:

decrease the initial uplink transmission power by value of the maximum estimated pathloss power difference when the value of the maximum estimated pathloss power difference is larger than zero.

15. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:

increase the initial uplink transmission power for the target uplink resource when value of the maximum estimated pathloss power difference is less than or equal to zero and the apparatus has transmission power budget available.

16. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:

compute a transmission power increase by first selecting a minimum value out of an absolute of maximum estimated pathloss power difference and a network configured uplink transmission power boost value; and

select a power control value by taking a minimum among a power increase of the initial uplink transmission power control value and a total uplink transmission power budget.

17. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:

use the initial uplink transmission power control value when the apparatus does not have transmission power budget available.

18. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:

apply computed uplink transmission power control values for resources configured for simultaneous uplink transmission over multiple antenna panels when the uplink transmission power control values have been determined for all configured uplink resources.

19. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:

transmit, to a network node, simultaneously at least one of the following with the computed uplink transmission power control values via multiple antenna panels: uplink reference signals, physical uplink shared channel, physical uplink control channel, and physical random access channel.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions stored thereon for performing at least:

receiving, by a user equipment, at least one signal for performing inter-antenna panel pathloss power measurements;

computing an initial uplink transmission power control value for a target uplink resource without any interference information;

computing pathloss power differences between the target uplink resource and candidate interference resources using the pathloss power measurements; and

using the pathloss power differences to identify a dominant uplink interferer by computing maximum estimated pathloss power differences.